How Does Composting Work?

It is the breakdown of tissues and compounds into simpler substances, which act as soil nutrients.
Put a pile of leaves, a cardboard box and a watermelon in your back yard, exposed to the elements, and they will eventually decompose.

How long each takes to break down depends on a number of factors:
o What are the materials made of
o How much surface area is exposed
o The availability of moisture and air

Organic Materials

Backyard composting is a process designed to speed up the breakdown or decomposing of organic materials. Let us take a closer look at how we manipulate the process and speed things up.

Here I use the term microbes, which include microscopic organisms and worms amongst a whole slew of “things.” Microbes live in the soil; they are the key to composting. Normally, they eat small tidbits of organic matter such as leaves and twigs that nature provides. The more these microbes have to eat the more efficient they can work. A lot of the things you call waste – for example, banana peels, rotten apples, brown wilted lettuce, fallen leaves and weeds from your garden – are food for these microbes. Meat products should not be used.

Nitrogen Inside Foods

• If a compost pile or compost bin smells it is because of meat products. They will eventually break down, but meat slows down the composting process. Microbes need carbon and nitrogen.
• Some things high in carbon include paper, sawdust, wood chips, straw, and leaves.
• Some things high in nitrogen include food, grass clippings, and manures. Be sure to include a mixture of wastes high in nitrogen in your compost pile. The smaller the chunks are the faster they will break down. So cut up that apple. Break up those twigs, your compost pile will reward you for your effort.

Surface Microorganisms

The more surface area the microorganisms have to work on, the faster the materials will decompose. It is like a block of ice in the sun: slow to melt when it is large, but melting very quickly when broken into smaller pieces. Chopping your garden wastes with a shovel or a machete, or running them through a shredding machine or lawnmower will increase their surface area, thus speeding up your composting

• Sufficient air in the pile encourages microbial growth and speeds decomposition. We have all had the experience of smelling a mass of wet grass clippings

Ability For Air To Get Inside

Be sure your compost container had holes to allow air to get into the compost pile. These microbes need air to survive. If possible, stir or turn your compost pile every week or so to let in more air. If you do not get enough air into your compost pile, other organisms take over and give off a nasty. They also work a lot slower. I think you would prefer in your compost pile! Also, wet your compost pile. Your compost pile should be about as moist as a sponge that has just been wrung out. If there is not much rainfall, add water to your compost pile.

Air Temperature Inside Compost Bin

Compost piles should range in temperatures of about 90 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit or 32 to 60 degrees Celsius. Higher temperatures produce will kill major disease organisms and fly larvae, help kill weed seeds, and provide a good environment for the most effective decomposer organisms If the temperature is too low in your compost pile, many of your microbes will die, and those other microorganisms will take over. You know the slow smelly ones.

How Heating Affects Creating Soil Compost

The plant matter will require heat and moisture for quick breakdown. The summer sun will provide the heat, but it will be the gardener’s responsibility to soak the compost area from time to time for the moisture.

Size Of Compost Pile

If your compost pile is too small, it will be cold. The best way to keep it warm is to build a pile at least three feet x three feet x three feet (one meter x one meter x one meter).
Extremes of sun, wind, or rain can adversely affect this balance in your pile.

Understanding For Effective Composting

Understanding these key factors when composting allows for efficient, quick break down of kitchen and yard wastes, turning them into “Black Gold”!

Conclusion: If you supply all these things – food, air, and moisture in a good-sized pile – You will get your compost in about six weeks. The larger the pile the longer it will take. A poorly attended compost pile can take years to decompose.

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Why build compost piles?

A compost pile will help you refresh your garden as well as allowing you to reduce the rate of garbage that you put into the landfills. By taking just a little bit of time out of your day, you can ensure that you never run out of fertilizer and that you are doing your part to help the environment. Even better, when you start looking into it, you will find that a compost pile is much easier to put together than you might think, even easier than building a other composting supplies!

How To Start Building A Compost Pile

Start by choosing a site for your compost that is near to both your kitchen and your yard. Some exposure to the sun is handy, but make sure that it does not get too much light, as this can dry it out. Some people recommend putting your compost pile in the shade of a tree, with a base of concrete or brick to make sure that that tree is not the only one getting the nutrients. Though it is not necessary, a plastic bin can keep your compost contained and looking neater. You can even create a “corral” for your compost pile using stiff wire mesh. Though the bin can be open on the sides, you will find that a roof is necessary to keep off the rain and to keep the compost from getting flooded.

• Green compost materials are materials that are rich in nitrogen, and they include things like grass cuttings, raw vegetable peelings, tea bags, manure from horses or cows or young weeds without seeds.

Get familiar with green compost materials and brown compost materials.

• They will decompose very quickly. Brown compost materials, on the other hand, are rich in carbon and will decompose much more slowly.
• Some material that are good for brown compost include cardboard, paper, bedding from vegetarian pets, or even sawdust and wood chips.
• When you go to combine these materials, you are essentially looking for a combination of one part green to two parts brown compost.

Combining Green and Brown Compost Together

1. To get started, start throwing in one shovel of green compost, top it off with two shovels of brown compost and then mix them.
2. Repeat until you have a pile that is roughly three feet high, by three feet wide, by three feet long. A composting pile of this size generates enough heat to break down fairly quickly.
3. Finally, throw on some finished soil compost or some garden soil to help get things going.

Make sure that you water your compost regularly;

It should feel like a damp sponge or a wrung out rag. It should also be turned once a week to keep it loose. Within about two months, you are going to have humus, which is the result from the decomposition, and this is going to be perfect for your garden!

• Take a moment to think about your garden and the waste that you create that can go into a compost pile. This is a great addition to any green-minded gardener’s garden, so see what it can do for you!

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If you would like to obtain the best results from your flower beds or vegetable garden, blending in compost with your soil is a great strategy. The most cost effective way to get compost is to generate your own!

When getting going with composting, one of the primary decisions that will have to be made is what sort of compost bin you will work with. There are lots of distinct sorts of compost bins that you are able to select from, based upon your preferences, the amount of space you’ve accessible for composting and your price range.

The most important element that all compost bins have in common is that they must be able to keep warmth in order to allow the materials to compost correctly. In a lot of ways, compost bins perform like ovens. The only difference is that in addition to holding heat, compost bins should also have the ability to retain moisture also. Whilst it’s very achievable to compost using a heap rather than a compost bin, the benefit to utilizing a compost pin is they make every thing appear nice and neat. Additionally, compost bins can help to contain the smells which are sometimes associated with composting.

One error that quite a few people make when composting is selecting to use a wooden fence or some other framework for a sidewall for composting. The issue with this is the process of active composting will ultimately decompose the structure in addition to discoloring paint and wrecking timber that has not been treated. As a result, you need to use only compost bins that are produced from plastic or metal. This will assist to prevent rot and rust from happening.

You’ll need to select from an enclosed compost bin or an open sided compost bin. The advantage to enclosed compost bins is that they do are likely to hold moisture as well as heat much better than open sided compost bins. The downside is they are also usually more compact. Because of the fact that enclosed compost bins hold the wetness and heat much better, they also tend to allow the materials to rot faster. Open sided compost bins are bigger and accommodate more material but due to the fact they function slower, they may not compost as much material over time as an enclosed compost bin.

The dimensions of your space might also dictate which kind of compost bin you decide on. Enclosed compost bins often work better in small yards whilst open sided compost bins will not function so effectively in smaller gardens.

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